Math

The United States recently donated $200 million to a United Nations consortium dedicated to arresting and reversing the course of the AIDS epidemic. Pathetic. Here we are, the richest, most powerful nation on earth, and we hand over a measly $200, when it's estimated that $7 to $10 billion will be needed annually. Let's do the math: 36 million people worldwide infected with AIDS, $200 million . . . that comes to about $5.56 per person. We should be ashamed of ourselves as a nation for offering so little help.

American middle school students don't much care that they're worse at math than their counterparts in Hong Kong and Finland. "I don't need it," my students say. "I'm gonna be a basketball star. " Or a beautician, or a car mechanic, or a singer. It's also hard to get much of a rise out of adults over the fact, released last year, that the United States ranked 28th out of 41 countries whose middle school students' math skills were tested by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The percentage of third, fifth and eighth graders in the Abington School District who needed remedial education in mathematics was higher last year than in the previous year, according to results of the state's basic-skills test. Reading in all three grades improved, as the percentage of Abington students who needed remedial help in that area was down. Although the percentage of third graders who needed remedial help in math increased only slightly, the amount of fifth graders who needed remedial education almost doubled from 8.6 percent in 1986-87 to 15.6 percent last year, according to the results of the Test of Essential Learning Skills (TELS)

Lester, 9, is active and in good health. He rides a bike, swims at an indoor pool, and likes practicing his strokes in the ocean. He plays soccer at a local park, climbs the gym bars and goes on swings and slides. He also likes playing catch, going to church, and challenging others in a game of Scrabble or checkers. He is learning to play the flute. Though there is neglect and abuse in his background, Lester is a happy and well-adjusted boy. When a child in his foster home is feeling low, Lester will say, "Let's go draw" or offer to play catch.

Alonte, 12, is waiting to be adopted. His wish is to have an older brother who will show him how to do things. And he'd like a mother and father who would come to watch his team play basketball. Alonte receives therapy for the abuse and neglect in his background. He will continue to need counseling after adoption, and his entire family will be asked to be supportive and involved. He's in fifth grade and gets help with reading. He likes math, science, gym and recess best. One of his hobbies is drawing.

So it turns out that American high school students do much worse in math than their peers in Hong Kong and South Korea. But the American kids think they're doing very well, thank you, while the Hong Kong and Korean students say they still have a long way to go. What's up with that? The discrepancy has many causes, to be sure, but at least part of the blame lies with our schools. We tell our kids that they're wonderful, over and over again, until they actually believe it. In other words, we lie. According to a 40-nation study of high-school math skills released last week by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Hong Kong and Korea rank first and third in the world, respectively, while the United States is 28th.

The seventh-graders at Clara Barton Elementary School suffered through 13 different math teachers this school year because the School District did not want to spend the money to hire a full-timer, a teachers union leader charged yesterday. In a story in yesterday's Daily News, district officials said the procession of substitutes forced on the pupils could not be stemmed because of the provision in the teachers' labor contract that prohibits schools from hiring permanent replacements for teachers on sick leave.

You make arrangements with Philadelphia Gas Works and they let you know what amount you must pay to get your bill down. You make payments every month, but instead of your bill going down, it goes up. Now you are paying much more. What type of arithmetic are they using? Someone needs to get on the ball before winter or we'll see some frozen people. Lula Jones, Philadelphia Nothing funny about Ira I applaud the efforts of the Maddux family and others in bringing Ira Einhorn to justice.

L. Stanley Crane, chairman and chief executive officer of Conrail, has given a persuasive update on reasons why Congress should keep the railroad independent and not sell it to Norfolk Southern Corp. Testifying in Washington Wednesday before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on transportation, he presented the basic arithmetic to dramatize that the proposed sale actually would be a giveaway. Conrail has $939 million in cash and $360 million in overfunded pension assets for a total of about $1.3 billion.

FOR A SIXTH straight year under state control, Philadelphia School District students posted impressive gains on the state's reading and math exams, city school officials announced yesterday. The gains cut across all racial lines and include students with disabilities, those learning English and those identified as economically disadvantaged. Still, the latest results of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) revealed the continuation of another pattern - a significant achievement gap that has Asian and white students outperforming their African-American and Hispanic peers.

HARRISBURG - Gov. Wolf vetoed the Republican-backed $30.1 billion budget in its entirety Tuesday night, a move that leaves Pennsylvania without a spending plan and sets the stage for a partial government shutdown. A visibly frustrated Wolf told reporters shortly after 9 that the spending plan the Republican-controlled legislature sent him was riddled with "gimmicks," as well as "smoke and mirrors, and a lot of kicking the can down the road. " He said it failed to adequately fund public education or provide property-tax relief to homeowners, and contended it would worsen the state's finances.

Albert Eugene Filano, 89, of West Chester, a decorated World War II veteran and later a mathematics professor at West Chester University, died Monday, May 18, of respiratory failure at Barclay Friends in West Chester. Born in Penfield, Pa., he was the son of Italian immigrants James E. and Rosy Ulizio Filano. He graduated in 1943 from Jay Township High School and went into the Army Air Corps, completing 33 combat missions against the Japanese mainland as a B-29 bombardier and radar navigator.

IT LOOKS AS IF today's election might be the one, at least the rare one, in which values outweigh race or ethnicity. Generally, but not always, we vote for people who look like us. It is racial, but not racist. We gravitate toward those who are like us because we feel they will understand us. It is tribal, something buried in the deep recesses of our reptilian brains. Not everyone does that, of course. In recent decades, liberal whites have been more open to voting across the color line than Philly blacks.

If the contest for mayor were between a candidate who supports schools and one who doesn't, it wouldn't be much of a campaign. Declaring education important and vowing to fund it accordingly is easy. How to pay for it is the hard question - one the mayoral candidates, as their answers on today's op-ed page show, aren't especially eager to answer. Like most core government services, public education has to be funded on a recurring basis. That means one-time windfalls like Jim Kenney's tax-lien sale and several candidates' welcome promises to collect back taxes won't get the School District that far. Other than savaging Mayor Nutter's proposed 9 percent property tax hike, the candidates are short on concrete plans for the broad-based taxes that could significantly boost long-term school funding.

HAMBURG, Pa. - Math, Civics, and Sciences Charter made short work of Millersburg on Friday in a PIAA Class A quarterfinal at Hamburg High. The Mighty Elephants steamrolled the District 3 Indians, 92-60. Keith Griffin led the charge with 30 points. Griffin scored the game's first nine points during a first-quarter spurt that ended with MC&S ahead, 19-0, four minutes into the game. "We just started off aggressively," he said. "Easy layups, back doors, and everybody was knocking down shots.

STATE CLASS A FIRST ROUND Math, Civics and Sciences 81, Notre Dame-East Stroudsburg 79 (OT): Nick Jones (15 points) went 4 for 4 from the line in overtime, including a pair of free throws with less than a minute remaining that put the Mighty Elephants ahead by 81-79 in Pleasant Valley. St. John's recruit Samir Doughty had 27 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists and five steals. Saheed Peoples scored 14 points and Luis Reyes added 12 points for MCS. Math, Civics and Sciences finished No. 2 in District 12. Notre Dame was the District 11 champion.

The Philadelphia School District says it would cost as much as $500 million to enroll 15,000 more students in new charter schools - about 20 times more than the amount offered by a private group. The Philadelphia School Partnership this week announced a gift of $25 million to the beleaguered school system to "take the cost issue off the table" and encourage the district to consider 39 charter applications on their merits alone. But were the SRC to add those charter seats, the price over six years would be much higher - if a fixed cost claimed by the district but disputed by PSP is used to do the math.

You are not going to understand the topic of Shashwat Kishore's research project, and that is OK. Suffice it to say that those who do understand it - a branch of abstract mathematics called representation theory - are very impressed. "What he did could be a good part of a Ph.D. thesis for a graduate student at a good university," said Pavel Etingof, a math professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That will have to wait a few years. Kishore, 18, is a senior at Unionville High School in Kennett Square.

DaShon Giddings scored 20 points in the second half to rally host Del-Val Charter to a come-from-behind, 80-66 win over Math, Civics and Sciences Tuesday in a Public League Division A matchup. Giddings made six of his seven shots from the field and went seven for eight from the line in the second half, leading the charge after the Warriors trailed by as much as 12 in the first half. "Our guys stuck together," Del-Val Charter coach Jason Harrigan said. "They just trusted the system and played with each other.